Crazy? Not counting fruit and/or vegetables

Hmmm does this mean unlimited avocado?? Sign me up!

Seriously though, can you maintain a deficit without counting fruits and veggies? Yes, if you don’t eat much else or that much fruit/veggies. I personally don’t see the point of not tracking them, particularly as some can be pretty high in calories (e.g. peas, bananas, apples). Then again, I don’t eat much fruit… or vegetables. . I like to weigh everything, especially fruit, and just focus on my macros, especially protein.

It’s really easy to underestimate fruit calories when you’re tracking it (i.e. going by size rather than weight), let alone when you’re not!

I did WW to great success (lost 75 lbs on WW online and kept it off for a few years). Your daily points are structured to take into account your veggies. It didn't include avocado or strach veggies. It would not work where you have a calorie goal that didn't take into account a few hundred from veggies the way the WW points allowance does.
Now that I am doing MFP I am counting everything since my calorie goal assumes that I am tracking everything I eat vs when I was on WW and it was assuming I wasn't counting veggies but built it in that I was eating them. My advice don't try to do half of one program and half of the other one (if that is what you were thinking of doing). My weight loss is about the same on MFP as when I did WW online.

Vixenmd1 wrote: »

I did WW to great success (lost 75 lbs on WW online and kept it off for a few years). Your daily points are structured to take into account your veggies. It didn't include avocado or strach veggies. It would not work where you have a calorie goal that didn't take into account a few hundred from veggies the way the WW points allowance does.
Now that I am doing MFP I am counting everything since my calorie goal assumes that I am tracking everything I eat vs when I was on WW and it was assuming I wasn't counting veggies but built it in that I was eating them. My advice don't try to do half of one program and half of the other one (if that is what you were thinking of doing). My weight loss is about the same on MFP as when I did WW online.

Exactly. Look at it like this: a cup of passion fruit and a couple of large bananas and you will undo your whole deficit if you're going for a 500 calorie deficit. I believe the new WW system has 800-1000 base calories? Either way, their base calories are low to account for "free" stuff, and it's assumed that most people don't consume a lot of them anyway.

seska422 wrote: »

sugarpeas wrote: »

I'm not at WW and never have been. I didn't count the veggies/fruit while using MFP when I first started using this system.

What's special about fruits and veggies that isolated them as things that you wouldn't count? They still have calories.

They're generally lower in calories than other foods. She does count them now, but she was probably wondering why she lost without counting them in the beginning.

OP if you have your calories at 1200, and since you have more than 50 pounds to lose you were likely still at a deficit (didn't eat a lot of fruits and vegetables). That and when you first start dieting you drop a few pounds of water weight, so even if you did eat enough to cancel out your deficit you would have still lost when you switched from eating high starch/sugar to more fiber/water.

I'm having 60 g of avocado on my salad later today. Avocado 60g =100 calories. TRACK your fruits and veggies. If it has cals track them.

dawnna76 wrote: »

I eat pounds of vegetables daily. they make the bulk of my caloric intake. if i didnt count them i could easily go over.

^This, I eat tons of vegetables - and some can be pretty calorie dense. I have a 400 gram sweet potato to cook for dinner tonight. That's over 300 calories.